Ancient Cliff Dwellings in Arizona

Why Not Visit. . . Walnut Canyon National Monument?

Technically Walnut Canyon is a national monument, but the monument is maintained by the National Park Service.  We visited the monument in 2014 when on a road trip through the southwest.  Visiting Walnut Canyon was a last minute decision.  We had no idea it existed until I was checking in on Facebook at a nearby national monument, and Walnut Canyon came up as a check in option.  It was past closing time, when we discovered this national monument was so close.  So we checked into our Flagstaff hotel and vowed to visit first thing in the morning.  

The view of the canyon from the visitors' center.

Arizona is a state filled with national parks and monuments dedicated to the ancient peoples of this area.  There are the Canyon De Chelly,  Montezuma Castle, and Wupatki just to name a few.  At Walnut Canyon rooms are carved out of natural limestone terraces set into the walls of the canyons.  Faster erosions of the limestone than its surrounding rock, created walk ways the ancients utilized to travel between the cliff-perched rooms.

Cliff dwellings along the Island Trail.

Unlike many other cliff dwelling sites, at Walnut Canyon you can enter into the dwellings still standing.

The ancient Sinagua people inhabited these cliff dwellings from about 1100 AD to 1400 AD.  Sinagua means without (sin) water (agua), and as such archeologists believe most of the rooms in the cliff dwellings were used to store carafes of water, something that only appeared in episodic events in this dessert region.  Why the cliff dwellings were abandoned is not known.

Some of the more well-preserved cliff dwellings which show what the entrances once looked like.

To access the cliff dwellings, which visitors are actually allowed to walk inside of, we ventured on the Island Trail.  The Island Trail is a loop trail accessible from the visitors' venter.  While this trail is only a mile round trip, the first/last section is rather steep (think stairs steep) which brings visitors down/up 200 feet to the first set of cliff dwellings.  We spent less than an hour on the Island Trail, but still found it a great experience worth deviating from our original plan for.  From Walnut Canyon, we drove east to Petrified Forest National Park, which we were also able to see that day.

Cliff dwelling are set into all the walls of the canyon.

We planned to visit the more well known cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde (another national park that features ancient cliff dwellings) in Colorado a few days after our visit to Walnut Canyon.  While I enjoyed the massive structures of Mesa Verde, I found the intimacy of Walnut Canyon more appealing, much like I found Lassen Volcanic National Park more intimate than Yellowstone National Park due to the lack of crowds with the same volcanic features.  We visited in the fall which is the off season, and only saw a few other visitors during our stay, although part of the Island Trail was under construction due to the off season repair schedule.

Know a national monument you think I should visit?  Tell me in the comments below.